


That Early?

by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Caylina Shepard [5]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 3 - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2053638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the way he says, “No, I know that! But I don’t have to like it.”</p>
<p>Kaidan wants to know when Caylina Shepard first fell in love with him. Cliches and all that to follow. First posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Early?

Shepard is poring over a datapad when Kaidan comes out of the shower wearing only sweatpants. He drops onto the couch, slides over, and buries his nose in Shepard’s neck.  
“Mm,” she says, scratching at the trimmed hair on the back of his head because she knows he likes it. Kaidan kisses her under her chin, where her neck meets her shoulder, on her collarbone, until Shepard sets the datapad aside and cocks an eyebrow at him. “You are so distracting,” she scolds and he grins like a schoolboy and pulls her onto his lap.

“Tell me,” he says, when they break apart for air.

Shepard kisses his earlobe. “Tell you what?”

Kaidan puts his hands on her waist and pulls her back slightly, tilting his head. “When did you know? That you loved me, I mean?”

She laughs at him, trails the backs of her fingers over his cheek. “Are you seriously asking me that? You know that’s like the most clichéd question ever, right?”

“Humor me,” he says, turning his head so he can kiss the palm of her hand.

With a frown, Shepard pulls her hand away. “You’re not still on about that whole ‘I loved you, I’ve always loved you, Cayli, but I don’t know if you ever loved me’ bullshit, are you? Because I thought we talked about that.”

“Hey,” he says gently, brow furrowing, “that’s not what this is about, I promise. Besides, you thoroughly disabused me of that notion.” He grins at her appeasingly and Shepard softens. “I just want to know.”

Shepard runs her had up the center of his chest teasingly and bends forward to kiss him again. 

“Okay,” she says softly, pulling back just slightly. Her brown hair, let down for once, spills over her shoulder and his chest. “If you really want to know…it was after Eden Prime.”

Kaidan blinks. “Eden Prime? That early?”

“Well, maybe not love exactly, at least I wouldn’t have said so at the time,” Shepard shrugs. “But you caught my attention.” She pauses. When Kaidan just smiles a little, without comment, Shepard thumbs the cleft in his jaw and goes on, “You were upset about losing Jenkins, remember, and I gave you the usual, ‘Soldiers die, shit happens’ line. Then you said – god, I’ll never forget it – you said, ‘No, I know that! But I don’t have to like it.’ This angry outburst, just came spewing out of you from nowhere. You caught me so off guard.”

“You fell in love with me because I yelled at you?” Kaidan asks with a chuckle.

“I was in a bad place back then, Kaidan. I’d lost everyone, except Anderson maybe, that I’d ever cared about. You get to a point where you’ve seen so much death that you figure, what’s one soldier more, we’re all gonna die someday anyway. And then there you were, with your fierce assertion that life was precious, that every death mattered and I – well, I’d forgotten that. You were the first one to get through to me in a long time.” Her voice goes quiet. “I think I really saw you for the first time that day.”

Kaidan brushes her hair back from her face. “You know why I was upset, right? You were unconscious for like half a day after saving my ass and after we lost Jenkins. The whole time you were out of it I was terrified we’d lose you too.”

“What, you cared that early too?” Shepard smirks at him. He grins back.

“Hell yes I did. You were Commander Shepard. Even before you saved the galaxy twice you were the Alliance’s favorite poster child.”

She snorts. “Right. I’m sure that was all there was to it.”

He kisses her slowly instead of throwing out a snappy comeback, savoring the taste of her lips and the smell of her loose hair around him. Shepard leans back in his arms and makes a pleased humming sound deep in her throat.

“Since we’re talking clichés here,” she says with a little grin, cupping his face in both hands. Her voice gets somber. “You saved me back then, Kaidan. From myself. All the things we’ve seen, all the darkness we’ve faced – I wouldn’t have cared enough about any of it to save anyone, if you hadn’t brought me back to what I knew. That every goddamn life in this galaxy matters to someone and is worth protecting, if we can. I needed something to keep living and fighting for besides orders, and that was you.” She tips her head and adds, “From the start, there was something special about you.”

Kaidan just watches her for a moment as Shepard catches her bottom lip between her teeth to worry at it.

“That…doesn’t’ really answer your question though, does it?” she says. 

“Well…” Kaidan starts to say, his arms tightening around her, but Shepard interrupts.

“When I knew it was love, that was the time you asked me if I showed this much interest in all my subordinates. I was going to say yes, because honestly I talked a lot to all the team. Tried to get to know everyone. But what came out was more of an embarrassed no.” She grins at him. “I decided later my subconscious was trying to tell me something.”

He laughs, and she feels it in the rumble of his chest against her skin. “You did get a little flustered at that question, as I recall,” he says.

Shepard shrugs at him, but the nonchalance in the motion is undermined by the glow in her blue eyes as she says, “What can I say, you’ve always had a way of getting under my skin, Alenko.”


End file.
